Arsanio's Speech: What would he say?
Excerpts from, The Negrusso Files:
After the gathering was over and goodbyes and were exchanged, Lavinia and Cathy decided to break off from the group and walk up fifth avenue together. Ada wanted to talk to Lavinia but lost sight of her as the two hurried and left through Vanderbilt Street to steal some time together. The window bars were still down on some of the stores because it was still early morning in midtown Manhattan. The morning commuter crowds were starting to flow into the city and were filling up the streets and sidewalks. A long line of people that must have been waiting all through the night, could be seen sprawled around the block waiting for an electronic boutique store to open its doors. They were waiting to buy the much anticipated new Nano technology powered gadgets that were due out that morning, which were supposed to raise gaming to a whole new level. As Cathy and Lavi were making their way towards the subway station by Radio City Hall the face of an emerging figure in world politics was on all the monitors relating some strange sounding ideas. There was nothing fierce or threatening looking about Arsanio. He was a regular featured man, well dressed with a persuasive, charismatic speech and manner topped with a measure of sarcastic humor directed at his detractors.
Arsanio was standing before some world council for the advancement of humanity and was giving a speech. He was saying, "We have to stop waiting for someone to rescue us from above" Cathy heard the rhetoric and said to Lavinia, "Can you believe this guy!" Lavi answered, "Yeah, I know. He is nuts". Arsanio went on talking for a while about how all the governing powers ought to be centralized and coordinated. " We must reclaim this planet from the religious dogmas that have caused so much strife and blinded us from seeing our reality as it is. I am a god and you all are gods; together we can unlock the hidden potential in each one of us and take our world to heights it has not reached before. After ten thausand years of civilization we still have not solved world hunger, terrorism and religious strife. Ignorance is destroying our world and the people in it. We must create a world where we all feel free to love who we want to love with no account to gender, race or creed.
Slowly, he inched up to some of his more controversial vision for the future. "I want you to partner with me in the challenge to bring about a new world where everyone feels safe and accepted. We can have a great future utilizing both the new advances in science and unlocking the latent spiritual power within us and outside of us. With the help of some of the best minds in the world we have created a program that will allow everyone to reach there full potential". The program he was talking about included spiritism and mind control techniques taken from old shamanic teachings. He meant to use that in congruous with a multi-purpose computer chip implant put in everyone giving them a unique identification number. The chip will hold each person's personal, financial and health data for quick access. It can monitor physiological and brain activity as well as make use of GPS to track someone or locate their whereabouts. "We have seen so much positive results that, if it were up to me, I would make it mandatory for everyone immediately. We need to take the best principles from all our world religions and reeducate everyone so religious strife can cease. We cannot continue teaching our children religious principles that will make them antagonistic to one another after they grow up, if we are to have a unified world that enjoys peace and harmony. Things that were only a dream before are now within our grasp but we have to make some hard choices.
"Arsanio continued, "We can't rely on old laws and religious precepts that teach us to love one another to protect us anymore. The Mega-terrorist threat in our age leaves us no choice but to use the advancements in technology to make sure everyone is logged in and cleared by a master computer that we will network all over earth”. He then went on to explain using technical jargon, how certain technologies had matured to be able to tell if someone was going to commit a heinous crime before they acted on them. Cathy could not hold back saying, "He wants to turn all of us into an item at the checkout store". Arsanio continued, “Each of us have to sacrifice our privacy to make sure a few mad fanatics will not destroy us for some obscure cause. And then he mentioned the events that had the world on edge ever since they had happened. The first of several Mega-terrorism events had been attempted and failed in several places around the world. Arsanio cried, “After what happened in Paris and Belgrade we cannot sit by and hope to enjoy peace and safety; we must secure it ourselves! We cannot and should not rely on archaic ideas from a book written hundreds of years ago to lead our lives. If we are going to meet the challenges that are facing us today we must utilize the tools available to us today.”
Some who were sitting in the council were applauding but his references to religion had not gone well with the Arab diplomats who were sitting as members of the council The reaction on the street was also mixed. Cathy and Lavi could see as some of the people watching him on the monitors nodding their heads in agreement. Such was the atmosphere of these times; radical winds were blowing all over the world. Lavinia said, pointing straight at the man in the monitor, “He is the man of sin the Bible talks about.”
His statements were considered very incendiary in the Arab world. The next morning papers held a transcript of the speech including protests in the middle East that showed someone burning a photograph of the soon to come world dictator. The speech was also met with a lot of protests from Christians around the world. A lot of them, like Lavinia were convinced this was the man who was prophesied to come. The world was headed towards the inevitable collision that had been prophesied to come for so many generations since the birth of Christ and even before. Armageddon had never seemed so close.
